Causeway Bay is located in Wan Chai District, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and is the main commercial and entertainment venues in Hong Kong, China. There are many large department stores and large shopping malls in the district, including: Sogo Department Store, Times Square, Lee Theatre Plaza and World Trade Center. The Causeway Bay shopping district is also the most expensive area in the world for rent.
Causeway Bay (English name: Causeway Bay, formerly known as East Point) is located west of the central north shore of Hong Kong Island and is the main commercial and entertainment venues in Hong Kong. There are many duplicate place names for Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, but most of them refer to Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island; another Causeway Bay (English: Tung Lo Wan) is located in Shatin, New Territories.
Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island is located east of Wan Chai and west of North Point, spanning Wan Chai District and Eastern District: east to Tsing Fung Street Overpass, west to Canal Road Overpass (Goose Neck Bridge). Among them, the Hong Kong Cross-Harbour Tunnel, Victoria Park, MTR Tin Hau Station, Jardine Noontime Gun, Queen's College and Hong Kong Central Library are located in the Eastern District of Causeway Bay (Tin Hau or the end of Causeway Bay).
Causeway Bay originally refers to the bay and its east coast, which is now Victoria Park. It got its name because the coastline there resembles a causeway. The coastline in the past was on Causeway Bay Road. Causeway Bay was formerly known as Salt Ship Bay. In the 18th century, the Dai family built a "Salt Ship Bay Red Incense Burner Temple" on the east coast of the bay, which is the Causeway Bay Tin Hau Temple.
The location that is generally called Causeway Bay today was originally called East Point, which means a cape to the east of Victoria City. The location of East Point is roughly the area between the current Victoria Park and Percival Street, which is near East Point Road.
In the mid-19th century, Causeway Bay was the headquarters of the British company Jardine Matheson. At that time, Jardine Matheson set up a warehouse in East Point and a sugar factory near today's Sugar Street, which is the site of the former Hong Kong Mint. At the end of the 19th century, it was very inconvenient to travel between the east and west of Hong Kong Island by detour or by boat through Causeway Bay, so a seawall connecting the bay was built, which is today's Causeway Road. This is also the etymology of Causeway Bay's English name "Causeway Bay". In the 1950s, Causeway Bay carried out a large-scale reclamation project to fill the bay. Part of the land obtained was used to build a traffic artery, and part of it became today's Victoria Park. Kellett Island was also connected to the mainland from then on.
In 1960, the Japanese department store Daimaru opened on Great George Street in Causeway Bay. With the construction of the first cross-harbour tunnel, its Hong Kong Island exit was in Causeway Bay. As a result, many Japanese department stores opened in Causeway Bay, making Causeway Bay a major shopping center on Hong Kong Island. Causeway Bay also became the main window to East Kowloon and New Territories East due to the opening of the Eastern Cross-Harbour Tunnel. In its heyday in the mid-1980s, there were 4 Japanese department stores in Causeway Bay, namely Daimaru, Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi and Sogo. Entering the 1990s, Japanese department stores were either closed or changed hands, and they were replaced by shopping malls one by one. The original Hong Kong Tramway depot in Causeway Bay was rebuilt into Times Square; the Lee Theatre on Percival Street was demolished in 1992 as the Causeway Bay Magistracy, an ancient building with a strong colonial flavor.